"SHEOAK NET"

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 417, 29 December 1932, Page 6

"SHEOAK NET"

THE REASON WHY FIRST INTRODUCED TO PROTECT SAILORS PLACED- UNDER GANGWAY The occasional arrival in the Port of London of large sailing ships with cargoes of grain from Australia gives a certain appositeness to a note sent to me by Captain A. W. Pearse, the Port of London Authority's representative for Australia and New Zealand writes A. G. L. in the "P.L.A. Monthly." He asks, "How many people know what a 'sheoak net' is?" sMany will be aware that in certain ports it is customary to place a net of some sort below the gangway leading from shore to ship and vice versa; indeed I recall that some Australian poet, Henry Lawson or 'Banjo' Paterson or Brady, has actually extolled such protection in verse. But why 'sheoak'? This is Captain Pearse's explanation. "In the days of the windjammers, in the '70's, there was a very potent drink to be had at Sandridge and Williamstown in Melbourne, called 'Sheoak beer.' This was said to be made from the bark of the sheoak

(tree) . One or two glasses would knock 'poor Jack' over with the result that' a large numher of drunken men were drowned when going aboard their ships late at night. To minimise this an Aet was passed making every ship hand a net under her gangway before anyone was allowed aboard or ashore. This Act is still in force at all ports; even the large passenger ships have to place it under their gangways. This net has always been called a 'sheoak net.' "Many years ago the Piermaster at Sandridge, now Port Melbourne, had a fine Newfoundland dog which followed every drunken sailor down the pier to his ship. If they managed to get safely aboard the dog returned; if the man f ell into the sheoak net he would howl till the man was rescued. The dog never followed a sober sailor."